With popularization of a digital camera, particularly, a mobile phone with camera having a digital camera function, photographs have been widely treated as image data sets. Under such situation, there have been widely used devices such as a television which captures image data sets from a digital camera or a mobile phone and displays images of the captured image data sets and a printer which prints images of the captured image data sets.
Further, there has been widely adopted a technique for allowing these devices to transfer the image data sets by wireless communications. Examples of a general protocol for transferring image data sets by wireless communications include: a high-speed infrared communication protocol such as IrSimple (registered trademark); a short-distance wireless communication protocol such as Bluetooth (registered trademark); and the like. By adopting such wireless communications, it is possible to easily cause a television to display photographs taken by a mobile phone.
Further, as a television which can receive image data sets by infrared communications, there is a television which determines whether a received infrared signal is an image data set transmitted from a mobile phone and the like or an operation signal transmitted from an infrared remote controller and controls the television itself in accordance with the operation signal in case where the received infrared signal is the operation signal.
Incidentally, if the television having the image data receiving function has an image processing function, it is possible to conceive such case that a photograph transmitted from a mobile phone is displayed on the television and an image of the photograph displayed on the television is processed.
However, in such case, user has to at first use a mobile phone to transmit an image data set to the television and then to take an infrared remote controller instead of the mobile phone and further to operate the television so that the television carries out desired image processing with use of the infrared remote controller. In this manner, the user has to perform such complicate operations.
As a technique for exclusively solving such a special problem, a display processing device of Patent Document 1 is known. The display processing device of Patent Document 1 receives an image data set and displays an image based on the received image data set while scrolling or scaling up/down the image in accordance with image display control information incorporated into the received image data set. That is, only by transmitting an image data set incorporating image display control information therein to the display processing device, it is possible to cause the display processing device to carry out image processing such as scrolling or scaling up/down of the image.
In case of operating the conventional television having the image data receiving function, this raises as described above such problem that the user has to use both the image transmission device (mobile phone and the like) for transmitting an image data set to the television and the infrared remote controller for operating the television, which results in complicate and troublesome operations.
Such problem can be solved by transmitting an operation signal similar to the operation signal of the infrared remote controller from the mobile phone to the television. However, in this case, the mobile phone for operating the television is required to have not only the image data transmission function but also a function for transmitting the operation signal. That is, a general mobile phone having no function for transmitting the operation signal cannot operate the television. This is inconvenience for the user. Further, a signal for the infrared remote controller is generally unsuitable for transmission of large amount of data. This raises such problem that it is impossible to give an instruction for executing complicate operations.
Further, even if the mobile phone is arranged so that it is possible to transmit from the mobile phone the operation signal similar to the operation signal of the infrared remote controller as described above, this raises such problem that each of a server and the mobile phone has to additionally have a function for processing a special communication protocol so as to transmit the operation signal from the server to the mobile phone in case of operating the television with a combination of the mobile phone and the server of the Internet.
Besides, the operation signal is not information which cannot be viscerally understood by the user. Thus, in case where a plurality of operation signals are accumulated in the mobile phone, it is difficult to select a desired operation signal from them. This problem occurs also in such an arrangement that operation signals received on the side of the television are accumulated and the user selects one thereafter.
Further, the display processing device of Patent Document 1 processes an image, displayed on the basis of the received image data set, in accordance with the image display control information incorporated into the image data set. Thus, even if the technique of Patent Document 1 is applied to the television, a process that the television can carry out is limited to a process for an image based on the image data set transmitted to the television, so that it is impossible to freely operate the television unlike the infrared remote controller.
Note that, for convenience in descriptions, the conventional problems were explained by taking the television as an example, but similar problems generally occur in image data receiving devices each having the image data receiving function. For example, as to a printer which prints an image of an image data set received from a digital camera, a printing operation cannot be stopped by the digital camera. In order to stop the printing operation, the user has to directly operate the printer or has to operate a computer connected to the printer. This is so inconvenience.